Finding the madman
by kiwifluffy
Summary: Lady Christina De Souza was on a bus when it flew through a wormhole onto the planet of San Helios. She met an alien man who saved her life. And now, with a flying bus and the police on her heels, she is out to find him again.
1. Chapter 1

From up here, the people are nothing. The buildings are mere dots on the horizon, the city nothing more than something for the moonlight to reflect off, the stars burning brightly, calling me to them. And then the absurdness of this hits me again, and all I can do is laugh, staring out where the window once was and hoping to see a blue box come flying at me. I am flying a London bus out, far away from the police, currently resting at about two kilometres above the Atlantic Ocean. Not like this actually feels too weird, after driving through a wormhole and finding myself talking to giant flies and running from flying stingrays. The last few hours have been the craziest of my life and all I want is to find that man, the madman with the blue box who flew off into the distance, far further than me.

But I will find him.

He said so little that I can identify him with, but I just know where to find him. He said he was a Time Lord, that he travels through time. But he was tracking the wormhole. I know that if I look at every strange occurrence in the world, see if anyone else has met a crazy man who calls himself The Doctor, then I will find him. And if I do, maybe he will realise that I should travel with him and that we were made for each other. Just like he said.

I turn the wheel and I decide to go to somewhere that has more rumours of alien activity than anywhere else in the world, and I can't believe I actually want to go there. I am deliberately going to Cardiff.


	2. Chapter 2

I fly the 200 in low, coming in to land in the bay. Quite a few people see me come in, but I don't worry about that. I have only two things on my mind-finding a less conspicuous form of transport and locating the Doctor. I move to the edge of the bus, which is hovering half a metre above the bay, and I cautiously stick my hand in the water. It's cold. And it would ruin my hair _completely_ if I jumped in. So really, for the sake of my hairdo, I have no choice. I fly in to shore, hoping that there is a way to get rid of this ridiculous bus even if I want to keep the clamps. The second I arrive on shore, there are people there, running up to the bus and climbing inside, trying to see how the trick was done. I slip out as the crowd rushes in and I remove the clamps, thinking I have made it away safely, but there is a man standing a distance away, watching me. He has brown hair and blue eyes as cold as ice. Military, by the look of it. He wears a greatcoat and my heart beats faster when I see the gun in his hand. Despite the threat that anyone connected to the government or police in any way poses to me, I go over to him. He just stares at me for a moment, and I realise exactly how much he seems to be in the wrong century. Eventually, he speaks, and his words send a shiver down my spine, a tingle of terror and excitement that rushes through my veins and fills me with energy.

'Lady Christina De Souza. Wanted thief of practically anything it is supposed to be impossible to steal. If you're looking for the doctor, come with me. If not, come with me anyway.'

And I do. When someone knows that much about you, you want to know where they get their information from.

Captain Jack Harkness, leader of Torchwood Three. Ianto Jones the Tea-boy who makes coffee. Gwen Cooper, former policewoman. Owen Harper, Doctor. And Toshiko Sato, a genius with alien tech, who just confiscated my anti-gravity clamps. I'm sitting in an underground base that everyone here calls the hub, drinking coffee and waiting for Owen, Gwen and Tosh to return from something called 'weevil hunting.' When I asked Jack-the man who I had met above ground- what a weevil was, he said no more than 'teeth and terrible dress sense,' so I decided not to ask. I also decided not to mention the pterodactyl that is flying around Owen's desk and sweeping all the papers onto the floor. The second Tosh left the building, Jack had started the computer that sat on her desk and started searching for the Doctor. I don't have to ask him to know that the two of them have met. It was the look in his eyes when I mentioned the pinstriped suit that told more than words.

What I do wonder is, how many people are there that are searching the world for this madman, and how many actually find him again?


	3. Chapter 3

I KNOW THAT SOME OF THE CHARACTERS IN TORCHWOOD ARE DEAD BY THE TIME THIS HAPPENS. SORRY, I NEED THEM ALIVE. I MIGHT KILL THEM LATER.

Nothing happens for months. _Months._ Okay, Torchwood accepts me and I find out what a weevil is (Jack was right-terrible dress sense) and I make friends with the pterodactyl, but nothing on the Doctor. I know the police are searching for me, but I'm tempted to go for something in the museum here, just to get out of this hole and away from the rift. A perfect heist, the sound of my heart pounding in my head and wires and harnesses… I'm doing this a lot, fantasising about grabbing something from somewhere. The Doctor was right, this is a lifestyle and it's a hard one to get away from. Finally, we're all standing in the Hub after a successful weevil hunt and Jack's phone rings. He picks it up but there's no one there- only a repetitive rhythm of four beats. I look blankly at Gwen, and she looks as bemused as I am. Both Owen and Ianto don't seem bothered, Tosh is staring at it, frowning, like the phone has been hijacked or something. But Jack… The second he heard the beats, the phone fell out of his grasp. I bend down and pick it up, holding it out to him. He looks at it but he clearly doesn't see it, hearing the rhythm as something else, a symbol of something worse. Eventually he looks up at me and I am terrified at the look in his eyes, whatever is happening, it scared Jack and that's not easy. Ianto is the one to break the silence and ask what the rhythm means and Jack hesitates before answering. When he does, he says very little, but it's enough to make the air feel colder, enough said in those few words and his chilling tone to make me want to run home and curl up in bed. That doesn't happen often, either.

'There is another Time Lord, other than the Doctor. He calls himself the Master and he's completely mad, he wants to kill the Doctor and control the universe. The reason he's mad… There is a drumbeat in his head. It has been there ever since he was a child and saw infinity. This beat means the archangel network's been reactivated and he's not as dead as we thought.'

I don't ask about the Archangel Network, the satellites that carry all the phone signals, because I don't need to know right now and knowing would only serve to make me even more scared of what is coming. I can't let that happen if I am to help the Doctor. At least, I won't be on my own. Jack's going to find him, too. And if Jack comes, Torchwood follows. I didn't ever realise how much I could use some support before now, but if there is someone as clever and brave as the Doctor who wants him dead, then we are going to need all the help we can get.


	4. Chapter 4

Jack had the clever idea of finding the last person he had travelled with, the one who called him space man. As it happens, the woman had her memory wiped when the Earth was stolen by Daleks (Great fun, that was- I got a hold of the crown jewels in the chaos, but decided to return them afterwards to avoid some poor person having his head cut off) so we wait for her to leave the house and we met her grandfather. He was searching for the Doctor, too. Great. So now there was me, Torchwood, and a bunch of old people out to find an elusive time lord. How hard could it be?

Surprisingly easy. Too easy, in fact. Wilfred Mott, the girl's grandfather, sent out a photo of the Doctor's ship and some of his friends found it. Then they found him, running in a junkyard. What they didn't see was the man who seemed to be flying. Jack saw him, twenty metres in the air and laughing like a maniac and we all knew it even before he said a word. _That's him._ I moved to run forward but Jack stopped me, pulling me back into the shadows as the Master landed just metres away. Scarcely daring to breathe, I pushed past Gwen to get a better look. He wore a black hoody, an odd choice of clothing for someone out to control the world, but before I could take in any more information, Owen had leapt out of the shadows and fired his gun straight at the Master's chest. The Master laughed and raised his hand, a stream of blue energy shooting out of it and stopping the bullet before slamming into Owen's chest. I watch in horrified fascination as Owen stumbles backwards, some kind of infection spreading over his body until he is no more than a dried out husk. I want to scream but Jack shoves me sideways with Gwen and pulls Tosh the other way, back towards the Doctor. He yelled at us to run and I see Ianto with us as we do, sprinting around the corner. We can't shoot back as we are just as likely to hit Jack or Tosh. Gwen slows to a walk and we follow, terrified. Eventually Jack joins us. There is no sign of Tosh. The silence goes on for too long before I dare to ask about her. All we get is a sad shake of his head.

_How can we fight him?_ That thought swirled in my head, again and again. This man killed two of our team when we were the ones with the advantage. What would he do if he caught us by surprise?


	5. Chapter 5

Gwen has her arm around my shoulders but I think I'm the one comforting her, not the other way round. I hadn't known Owen and Tosh as long as them yet their loss weighs me down, makes everything look darker. Ianto and Jack went to 'scout the area', but from their quietness and the coldness in Jack's eyes as he stares into the distance, Owen and Tosh weren't just colleagues-it was clear the second I met Torchwood that they are a family. Even though I'm part of that now, I still feel like an outsider, looking in on someone else's grief. I force myself to focus on our current situation and I peer into the shadows of the old warehouse once more. It's not really a warehouse- This is actually the former base of Torchwood One, Canary Wharf. I've never been here before as by the time I joined Torchwood the Cardiff base was the only one still functioning. I don't think Gwen or Ianto have been here, but Jack has. how else would he know to come here, how else could he remember the layout of this labyrinth of tunnels? This room, filled with boxes, could easily be mistaken for a commercial storeroom, if the boxes didn't hold alien stuff. I'm surprised that it's still here.

We must sit for hours before Ianto and Jack return. Gwen's body start to shake from fighting back tears and I brush her hair with my fingers, keeping it away from her face. Somewhere between one stroke and the next, I fall asleep.

When I wake up, Jack is gone. Gwen doses fitfully next to me and I wonder why I am suddenly awake when I see Ianto on the other side of the room., his eyes wide and staring into the distance.

Too wide.

Ianto's eyes are glassy and there's a sickening feeling in my stomach as I realize what caused me to wake. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I notice the deep wound in his neck, blood pouring out of it. There is a tiny movement to my left and I throw myself to the floor as a knife goes spinning across the room, like a silver butterfly glittering in the fractured moonlight. I reach Gwen and shove her sideways, trying to ignore the way she draws the gun the second she feels my attack. She's a fighter. All of us would do the same. I pull her towards the door and we're almost there when two things happen simultaneously: Gwen spots Ianto's body and gives a tiny scream as I see the man in black raise his rifle. I fire, the roar of my weapon unnaturally loud compared to all other noise in this moonlit night. As soon as I do this Gwen grabs me and we run out the door, bursting onto the suburban street and leaving only the echoes of our retreating footsteps with Ianto's lifeless body.

Somehow, Gwen knew exactly where Jack had gone. I follow her down passageways that had their entrances obscured by rubbish bins and cars, struggling to keep up as we emerge in a scrapyard that's on fire. A bit of a giveaway, then. Without speaking, both of us slow to a walk when we hear him laugh. The master isn't just mad- right now, he's _happy._ Anything that makes the Master happy, we reasoned, couldn't be good for us. Then, for the first time, we hear him speak, yet I feel I know his voice, that I have heard it a hundred times before, and it strikes fear into my heart.

'They're real!'

I want to see him, I have to. I have to know what the man who can scare Captain Jack Harkness really looks like. I creep to the edge of the pile of metal we are sheltering against and glance cautiously around the corner. He stands over a figure wearing a long coat with brown hair, someone I know very well, lying beaten in the dirt.

Specifically, he was standing over the Doctor.


End file.
